1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a railroad tie treating apparatus and more specifically to injection heads for such an apparatus by which a flowable treating material can be injected through unused or unoccupied spike holes in railroad rail tie plates which anchor the bottom flange of a railroad rail to the wooden ties. Each of the injection heads includes a structure enabling the injection head to be sealingly engaged with the tie plate in order to prevent leakage of the treating material between the injection head and tie plate with several embodiments of the invention being disclosed to assure efficient discharge of the flowable treating material between the bottom surface of the tie plates and the adjacent surface areas of the wooden ties.
2. Description of the Prior Art
My prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,746,553 issued May 24, 1988 discloses a vehicular apparatus having flanged wheels movable on railroad rails and discloses the basic concept of injecting a treating material through one or more unoccupied spike holes in the rail supporting tie plate. This patent and the prior art of record therein is made of record in this application by reference thereto. In addition, co-pending application U.S. Ser. No. 07/439,321 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,046,448 discloses portable embodiments of a treating apparatus and the references of record in that application are incorporated herein by reference thereto.
None of the prior art discloses an injection head having specific structural characteristics that enable quick, easy and extremely effective sealing engagement with a peripheral portion of an unoccupied spike hole in a railroad rail tie plate which supports the rail from the wood tie in order to inject fluid treating material between the bottom surface of the tie plate and the upper surface of the wooden tie in an efficient manner without leakage of the treating material around the periphery of the upper end of the unoccupied spike hole.